Critical Review of Robert Dreyfuss' Devil's Game - Book Report/Review Example

Devil’s Game: How the United s Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam During the Cold War, the intelligence community in America focused heavily on curbing the spread of communalism across the globe. This led to many erroneous alliances with the Islamic fundamentalists in the Middle East and South Asia. Robert Dreyfuss’s 2006 book Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam is one of the many books published in the aftermath of 9/11 terrorist attacks that strives to explore the repercussions caused by the U.S. foreign policy in the Islamic and Arab countries. In their mission to wipe out communism from the face of the earth, America began to distinguish nationalist groups as ones who were potential groups to advocate communalism. In order to suppress the growth of these nationalist groups, the United States extended their alliance to the conservative Islamic groups, especially in the latter’s mission to fight the Soviets in places like Afghanistan. Dreyfuss has argued that it is with the support received from the United States that terrorist groups like al Qaeda were formed that are now appearing in major headlines across the world. The views of those policymakers who could predict the vices in advocating the fundamentalists were silenced. The principle purpose of America was to support the fundamentalists against the nationalist groups as a result of which Muslim brotherhood grew to spread its wings. The Islamic groups were helped to destroy the efforts of  Pro-Soviet Arab Nationalist leaders such as Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt whose mission was to end the controlling power of the West on the Middle East. Dreyfuss’s book is a result of the author’s extensive research based on interviews with former officials and study of published works. The final product of this book is a summary of overlooked opportunities and ignored indications. According to Dreyfuss, the role of United States in the growth Islamic fundamentalist groups across world is so far “an unwritten chapter in the history of the Cold War and the New World Order” (Dreyfuss, 1). He has argued that throughout the last sixty years the United States has “sometimes overtly, sometimes covertly funded and encouraged right-wing Islamist activism”, and thus “is partly to blame for the emergence of Islamist terrorism as a world-wide phenomenon” (Dreyfuss, 1). The author has effectively presented his argument by stating that the United States perceived the Soviet Union as a major threat and therefore used its resources to follow anti-Western and extremist activities in the Middle East. In the first glimpse, there is an exaggerated view of the entire phenomenon as can be seen in the book’s subtitle “How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam”. Although the author has somewhat diluted the broad view of this statement throughout his book, he has established his point that the United States in the major factor for the growing terrorism. His principal theory is that the Islamic extremists would not have acquired this massive power without the constant support from the CIA, and this he has attributed as underlying force for pan-Islamic politics. However although Dreyfuss considers the United States’ misleading visions as a vital force for growing Islamism, he has not written this book solely for the purpose of blaming the Americans. He has also attributed the present day terrorism world-wide to the historical roots of the Islamic beliefs and their anti-Western notions that have deep roots. Dreyfuss also argued that United States, most of the times, extended their support to the Islamic fundamentalists without any accurate knowledge of the latter’s real motives. Dreyfuss’s accusatory remarks against the United States are mainly based on the fact that the CIA did maintain contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood during the 1970s when at the same time the brotherhood expanded its wings. However, the author indeed holds many exaggerated opinions about the United States’ alliance with the Islamic fundamentalists. The fact was that the U.S. Intelligence officers did not exert principle focus on Islamist politics in the countries over which the United States had control, nor did they give high priority to maintaining international links among different Islamist groups. In fact, till the Iranian revolution in 1979, the United States had many misleading and inaccurate information about the Islamic extremists like the author has pointed out “Even after the Iranian revolution of 1979, the United States and its allies failed to learn the lesson that Islamism was a dangerous, uncontrollable force” (Dreyfuss, 4). Regarding the alliance between the United States and the Saudi Arabians, Dreyfuss considers this as a significant strategic blunder; “it was a folly compounded by yet another massive error” (Dreyfuss). It can be easily assumed and that too with considerable reasons that the Saudi Kingdom had its own vast wealth that could be utilized to enhance their already continued efforts to spread their Islamic power throughout the region, even if the United States maintained distance with the Saudis. The author moans over the fact that the United States provided massive military support and infrastructural facilities to the Saudis that became a key instigator for Osama bin Laden’s anti-U.S. jihad. However, here the author failed to consider one important strategic game of the United States, and also this indicates the author’s failure to carry a true view of the Americans’ intentions. Here, the fact is that the United States had its eyes on the massive accumulation of Saudi oil, and therefore the country provided security support to the Saudis not only to provide power to the Islamic groups within the Saudi Kingdom but also with the goal to protect the Saudis from its neighbours and Soviet invasion. Dreyfuss also failed to consider the fact that it would not have been possible for the United States to liberate Kuwait from the tyrannical rule of Saddam Hussein in the year 1991 without the strong alliance between the Saudis and the United Sates. Dreyfuss argues that the story would have been different of United States would have tolerated Nasser whom he has stated as having “revolutionary outlook” (Dreyfuss, 96). The author has stated that there are many evidences to prove how the United States improperly handled its relations with Egypt and Nasser as it emphasized more on Israel and the Cold War. However, it is not politically correct to assume that United States should have maintained a distance with the Saudi Arabians and consider that Nasser offered the roadmap to a secular Arab world. Dreyfuss has substantially documented the facts that the United States extended ample support to Pakistan in the context of maintaining the latter’s alliance with the Afghan Islamists. However, in spite of these error in judgments, there remains the fact that the growth of Taliban, Osama bin Laden, and al-Qaeda was more as a result of America’s withdrawn support from a devastated Afghanistan after the war rather than America’s alliance with the Islamists against the Soviets. Dreyfuss opined that had the Americans extended support for rebuilding Afghanistan then it would not have become safe abode and training ground for anti-Western extremists who led to the 9/11 catastrophe. Although Dreyfuss’s analysis is not without loopholes, the book is well written and sufficiently documented. His arguments that United States held limited knowledge about the Islamic world, and that the country often had the tendency towards short-term strategic goals without considering the long-term repercussions stand valid. Reference Dreyfuss, Robert. Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam, Macmillan, 2013 Read More